"If we'd only seen what was in it we wouldn't feel so bad," said Rose.

"But it's like a puzzle you never can guess."

One evening Daddy Bunker came home from the village with some round tin boxes.

"What's in 'em?" cried Violet, always the first to ask a question.

"Let's guess!" proposed Laddie. "Maybe I can make up a riddle about 'em."

"I know what's in them," said Russ. "I can read it on the box. It's marshmallow candies."

"Oh, are we going to have a marshmallow roast on the beach?" cried Rose.

"Yes, that's what we are going to have," her father said.

"Oh, hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" cried the six little Bunkers.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SALLIE GROWLER

Have you ever toasted marshmallow candies at the seash.o.r.e beach? If you have you need not stop to read this part of the story. But if you have not, from this and the next page you may learn how to do it.

In the first place you need three things to have a marshmallow roast, and you can easily guess what the first thing is. It's a box of the white candies. Then you need a fire, and, if you are a little boy or girl, it will be best to have your father or mother or some big person make the fire for you, as you might get burned.

Then you need some long, pointed sticks on which to hold the marshmallow candies as you toast them. If the sticks are too short you will toast your fingers or your face instead of the candies.

"Have you got lots of marshmallows, Daddy?" asked Rose, as she and the other children gathered about their father.

"Plenty, I think," he answered. "We don't want so many that you will be made ill, you know."

"I can eat a lot of 'em without getting sick," declared Laddie.

"I like 'em, too," said Vi. "Where do the marshmallow candies come from, Daddy?" she asked.

"From the store, of course!" exclaimed Laddie.

"No, I mean before they get to the store," went on the little girl.

"Does a hen lay the marshmallows, same as chickens lay eggs?"

"Oh, no!" laughed Daddy Bunker. "Marshmallow candy is made from sugar and other things, just as most candies are."

As the six little Bunkers, with their father and mother and Cousin Tom and his wife, walked down to the sh.o.r.e of the sea, which was light from the beams of a silvery moon, Laddie said:

"I have a new riddle!"

"Is it about marshmallows?" asked Vi.

"No. But the candies made me think of it," replied her brother. "It's about a fire."

"What is your riddle about a fire?" asked Cousin Ruth, who always liked to hear Laddie ask his funny questions.

"Where does the fire go when it goes out?" Laddie asked. "That's my riddle. Where does the fire go when it goes out?"

"It doesn't go anywhere," declared Russ. "It just stays where it is."

"Part of it goes away," declared Laddie. "Where does it go? Where does the hot part go when the fire goes out?"

"Up in the air," said Rose.

"Off in the ocean!" exclaimed Mun Bun, who really did not know what they were talking about.

"Does it, Daddy?" asked Laddie.

"Why, I don't know," said Mr. Bunker. "It's your riddle; you ought to know what the answer is."

"But I don't," admitted Laddie. "I made up the riddle, but I don't know what the answer is. If some of you could think of a good answer it would be a good riddle."

"Yes, I guess it would," agreed Mrs. Bunker. "This is the time you didn't think of a good one, Laddie. A riddle isn't much good unless some one knows the answer."

Perhaps some of you who are reading this story can tell the answer.

Down on the beach went the six little Bunkers. There was a bright moon shining and here and there were other parties of children and young people, some going to have marshmallow roasts also, and some who only came down to look at the ocean shining under the silver moon.

Mun Bun and Margy, with Violet and Laddie, raced about in the sand, while Russ and Rose helped their father and Cousin Tom gather driftwood for the fire. There was plenty of it, and it was dry, for it had been in the hot sun all day.

"What makes the sand so sandy?" asked Vi, as she sat down beside her mother and Cousin Ruth and let some of the "beach dust," as Daddy Bunker sometimes called it, run through her fingers.

"That's a hard question to answer," laughed Mother Bunker. "You might as well ask what makes the moon so shiny."

"Or what makes the water so wet," added Cousin Ruth. "Oh, you are such a funny little girl, Violet!"

"What makes me?" asked Vi.

"I suppose one reason is that you ask so many funny questions," said Cousin Ruth. "But there, Daddy has lighted the fire, and we can soon begin to roast the marshmallows."

On the beach, near Russ and Rose, where they were standing with their father and Cousin Tom, a cheerful blaze sprang up. It looked very pretty in the moonlight night, with the sparkling sea out beyond.

"Can we roast 'em now?" asked Laddie, as he got ready one of the long, pointed sticks.

"Not quite yet," said his father. "Better to wait until the fire makes a lot of red-hot coals, or embers of wood. Then we can hold our candies over them and they will not get burned or blackened by the blaze. Wait a bit."

So they sat about the fire, while Daddy Bunker and Cousin Tom piled on more wood. The boxes of the candies had been opened, so they would be all ready, and each of the ten Bunkers had a long, sharp-pointed stick to use as a toasting-fork.

"I guess we are ready now," said Daddy Bunker, after they had listened to a jolly song sung by another party of marshmallow roasters farther down the beach. "There are plenty of hot embers now."